Does something become inherently sinful because of it’s roots or heritage? A while back we had a huge discussion on Christianity and yoga. Some suggested that yoga is bad because of it’s Hindu roots. The same arguments have been used for rock and rap music, Christmas, Halloween, marathons, etc. Can something’s roots poison it beyond Christian use and enjoyment?
At what point do we cross the line of syncretism, where we are blending our historical Christian faith and other cultures or religions? And can we appreciate work done by nonChristians (like a Van Gogh painting) without endorsing Van Gogh’s lifestyle?
On a side note, I have a good Christian friend who goes to yoga at her gym once a week. She hasn’t been asked to do anything outside of her faith and she has a vibrant walk with Christ. If there were things that her instructor asked her to do that weirded her out, like transcendental mediation, then she’d just not participate in that exercise.
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I don’t mean to start the “Yoga” debate again… but I think that we confuse the religious practice with the “Americanized” version that sanitized much if not all the “religion” out of it.
In the end it is just a beneficial stretching and breathing exercise.
But, marketing it as “yoga” will bring more people in.
Just a thought.
iggy
Good point, Iggy. I never thought that what is marketed in America as yoga probably isn’t real yoga.
I think it would be a near impossibility to be a Christian and not have some degree of syncretism, at least in the way that it is defined by those who like to accuse people of it. As human we live in a culture no matter where and when we live. Even Jesus ate similar food and spoke the language of His culture.
I often think Christians approach this argument from the wrong side. It seems to me that Satan really doesn’t have the ability to create. I think pagan rituals, practices, and celebrations can be traced to be perversions of things God intended for good.
Take prayer for example – God gave us the ability to communicate with Him, but fallen people, through Satan’s influence, have taken this practice and turned it into something it wasn’t meant to be. The same could be said for a number of things. I guess my argument would be is that Christians need to get to the true root of things and see things the way God intended them.
I do love the example of Van Gogh…
I love his paintings… I love the stories, though i hurt for him as one who went through great pains for his art and in light of losing his sanity…
Yet, i do not endorse that one cut off their ear as part of courtship to impress the one they love.
Be Blessed,
iggy
Many don’t realize that Van Gogh was a Christian missionary at one point in Belgium. The people he was assigned to minister to were freaked out by him and he was asked to leave.
Later in life he got involved with prostitutes and self mutilation. Hence my comment about not emulating a non Christlike life style.
You know, just because a practice has a non-Christian origin doesn’t automatically make it wrong. The question is, what is the Biblical imperative that makes a practice wrong? Praying to a pagan god? Sure that’s pretty clear. But what about something as vague as “contemplative meditation”? I suppose its what is being contemplatively meditated on.
The thing is, it comes back to the scriptures. If we hamstring our ability to use the scriptures to evaluate (perhaps by reading our own culture into scripture) we have no basis by which to evaluate.
In the yoga debate, I talked about a couple basic thought processes in the Restoration Movement churches of the early 1800’s which are still carried in our tradition:
1) Where the Bible speaks, we speak; Where the Bible is silent, we are silent
2) In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things love
A couple weeks after the debate, a friend of mine, who I consider to be about the most knowledgable in church history and application that I know, told me that I’d forgotten another basic philosophy in the RM Independent Christian Church that would have proved valuable
3) Names are important, so we call things what they are.
While this is often used to avoid ‘Christianese’ and all of the ritualular titles which men have developed and to prevent confusion, this tenant would have been good to remember, though we did touch on the issue.
What is practiced in classical Hindu yoga is not what is practiced in “Christian yoga”. The activity involved in “Christian yoga” is not sinful (exercise and meditation), but calling it ‘yoga’ makes it confusing, particular to the weaker brothers and sisters, because the name gives it the appearance of compromise. It would be better to call it a “low-impact aerobic and meditation” class…
The yoga issue fascinates me. I had a long and bizarre “disscussion” on the old SOL awhile back. Former wrestler Diamond Dallas Page had a book out entitled “Yoga for Regular Guys.” I received several comp copies here at the station. I’m no authority on Yoga, but for all the world, the photos looked like a simple series of low impact aerobic exercises. Perfect for older guys, and guys with some arthritis issues. As you can imagine, the responses were pretty predictable. My point was that it looked like a fairly simple excercise book. But the avalanche of frightened Sliceatrons ran more along the lines of…”If it walks like a duck”…”Some of the positions actually allow the devil to enter your body”. And the best one of all, “Why should you even be worrying about something as worldly as your body when you should be preparing for His return”.
At what point does being a Christian mean you become lobotimized? When do you give up your ability to make rational decisions about the things around you, and why would you want to?
I think the Buddhists and Hindus might be on to something when it comes to breathing as well. Proper breathing can really relax you. We here in the west don’t breath well.
How many currently accepted Western medical/art/musical/etc. practices (found acceptable in the church, that is) have a questionable root? That’d be the question to answer, to try to see the amount that we’ve accepted, why we’ve accepted it, and in what way. I think SOL readers have probably accepted a lot more into their lives that they think are “Christian” that are based in something non-Christan, than they realize. It would be impossible for absolutely everything (food, industry, holidays, habits, social practices, law, tradition, etc.) to be based in explicitly defined Biblical/Christian sources.
“Of the world, not in it” gets bandied about, but think about it: we are of the world, born of it, of worldly (i.e. human, fleshly, tangible) things. We eat food of the world, breath air of the world, are immersed in culture of the world (impossible not to be). We are of this world, though not forever.
Speaking of things with “occult roots”, I played Dungeons and Dragons growing up. This hardly made me interested in real paganism or real magic. I did it for enjoyment. I even think my character was a wizard.
In some cases, these activities are like the issue of drinking. The Bible doesn’t say to not drink (and in fact, the Bible encourages it!). It does say that we are to not get drunk.
I don’t have any desire to play D & D now because it’s kinda nerdy.
Or, perhaps like Paul taught, eating meat sacrificed to idols is ok as long as you don’t offend your weaker brother. However, to sacrifice to idols, that would be a sin.
Regarding Matt B’s comment: In keeping with what might cause a weaker brother to stumble…you know what sin really disturbs me that seems to be condoned in churches and doesn’t even seem like an issue?
Gluttony.
Seriously. It’s sort of seen as a joke in many of these very churches that have issues with other things (like those discussed here). I’m not going to lay claim to the “weaker brother” title or say that I’m going to stop being a Christian after watching someone down a dozen Krispy Kremes, but I am bothered by a person who condemns all these other things we talk about here, yet eats like a vacuum and is the size of a house. The Bible does address gluttony. Correct? Yet this is ignored, and even flaunted, at church dinners.
It’s all a matter of what we deem “acceptable” sin and what sins are the pet sins to hate.
Julie,
Actually, I have a friend who is going to school to be a naturopathic doctor, and this is one of her pet peeves. It seems to be the one sin that churches not only mostly refuse to talk about, but actually promote and celebrate.
I think it all goes back to this point: it is always easier to point out other people’s sins then to admit that we are all vulnerable to sin. It’s easy to say that a style of music I don’t like is from the devil, but hard to admit that my attitude is not pleasing to God.